Favorite Words 1: English

I don't know if they're really favorites, but these are all words I love. I'm not talking about words I'm supposed to love because of what they mean. ("The most beautiful words in the English language are hope and love." Barf.) Or words I'm supposed to love because they have a supposedly universal appeal, like liquid or the unaccountably famous cellar door. I mean words that just push all the right buttons inside my ears. You have ear buttons, too, don't you?
 

• lithotripter (a device that breaks up kidney stones)
• anhinga (Anhinga anhinga, also called the snakebird)
• tephra (rocks and other solids ejected from volcanoes)
• limulus (genus of horseshoe crabs and stuff)
• clinquant (glittering)
• pipsissewa (an evergreen of the genus Chimaphila, especially C. umbellata)

I don't think I've ever heard anyone use these, except maybe anhinga, used when pointing at an anhinga, I'm guessing. Most of them aren't going to come up in casual conversation. Unless you're a volcanologist or a kidney specialist or some kind of weirdo. 

You know, it occurs to me that none of these English words is really all that Englishy. They're New Latin or of otherwise foreign provenance. Maybe the next post about favorite English words will feature words of a more earthy Englishness.

(You can adopt a favorite word at http://www.adoptaword.com/ to benefit I CAN, "the children's communication charity" and all the people they benefit.)